


Conversations

by napstabl00k



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Awkward Conversations, Homophobia, M/M, Q slur, and maybe a questionable taste in men, natasha is gay as hell, steve has 2 hands, steve is bisexual as hell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-31
Updated: 2018-05-31
Packaged: 2019-05-16 07:10:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14806709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/napstabl00k/pseuds/napstabl00k
Summary: Three conversations, and Natasha learns just why Steve hasn't really cared for her matchmaking.(Set during CA:WS)





	Conversations

**Author's Note:**

> CONTENT WARNING: Homophobia, mentions of violence, emotional trauma, Steve is dramatic and Natasha is nosey

They were prepping to move out and stop the Insight launch. Fury was still in his bed, resting until he went to the chopper; Hill had gone god-knows-where to procure some sort of S.H.I.E.L.D. tech that Romanov would be using. The assassin in question sat on her own cot, nursing the gunshot wound in her shoulder with a wry smile on her face, and Sam had stepped into an adjecent room to check the Falcon suit for damage. This left Steve, sitting by Natasha’s bedside, his thoughts far too loud for this small room. He stood, hoping some fresh air would clear his head, when Natasha’s voice stopped him.

“So, you and Rumlow, huh?” Steve looked back from the doorway and Natasha’s smile turned into a smirk. “Didn’t see that one coming. Or having been a thing, I guess.”

Steve raised an eyebrow, and his heart did a little flutter in his chest. “What do you mean?”

Natasha raised her eyebrow right back. “Don’t give me that. I’m a professional liar, and you’re still terrible at it. And I saw the way he looked at you, when they had you on the ground. That was more than a soldier and his former captain.” Her brow furrowed slightly. “Double agents don’t usually look that conflicted. Is that why you’ve been denying all my date set-ups?”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” Steve replied, mouth dry. “Rumlow was my second-in-command. We went through some tough missions together. That’s all.” He put his back to the spy and went to turn the door handle.

“Wait.”

With an audible sigh, Steve turned back and faced Natasha, who now looked rather apologetic. “I didn’t mean… sorry, I forgot. Where you were from, I mean, I just started to see you as a friend and it was just meant to be playful ribbing,” Natasha rambles slightly, fiddling with her unused bed covers. “I forgot you were raised during the Great Depression. Not really a time when people would playfully rib about sleeping with another guy, huh.”

Steve’s jaw clenched. His heart felt like it was about to burst, and he was starting to panic - but it was just Natasha, and she said she saw him as a friend, which means it could be okay, right? And this was the twenty-first century. Steve had done his research; gay rights were actually taken seriously in this decade. Still, the fight-or-flight response was incredibly strong, something he had cultivated during long nights hiding in seedy bars, making out with strangers in alleyways, sneaking out the window at 3 AM, always watching his body language and speech and never, ever letting anyone know who wasn’t already just like him.

If it was possible for a professional liar to look absolutely lost, Natasha was definitely nailing it. “I didn’t mean to… out you, or anything like that. I know how terrible that is.” Her fiddling increased in urgency. “I’ll make it even. I’m gay.”

“Oh,” was all Steve said, his tongue still locked, and his legs nearly threatened to give out beneath him from relief. This he could handle; he was used to meeting lesbians in the army, and there was always a strong solidarity between the gay and lesbian community in his neighborhood. This wasn’t someone who he didn’t know, catching him in the act; this was Natasha, and they were friends, and she was gay too.

“Yeah,” Natasha let out a breath. “Nobody really knows that. I’ve only actually told Barton. I’m sure Fury knows anyway, though.” Her gaze darkened, just for a second, and Steve wondered if he imagined it. They were both silent for a moment, as Steve attempted to lower his heart rate to less than a million beats per minute, and it seemed Natasha just couldn’t help herself. “So… your actual first kiss since 1945?”

Third mission together, the aftermath. A job well done, and after debriefing they were stowing gear, heading home. Rumlow’s eyes on Steve as he undressed in the locker room, and the captain felt like he was sixteen again and scrawny, but this time he was over six feet tall and a supersoldier, and well over ninety. Steve had taken his time finishing up, watching as the team slowly filed out, until it was just him and Rumlow, and they ended up in some closet together, their lips met in a furious dance, hands hurridly removing the clothes they had just put on, and wasn’t this familiar? It was the same old song that Steve grew up with, was molded by: secrecy, the soldiers in the barracks, looking desperately for release while trying not to get arrested or murdered.

“Yes,” he answered finally, “it was.” He suddenly felt emboldened with that admission - his first time discussing his relationships since he got out of the ice, and God, he had been dying to talk to someone about it, ever since he discovered how much stronger his community had gotten while he was gone. “It was very secret, he knew… he could tell that I wasn’t really comfortable with anyone knowing. He was good at keeping secrets.” A little too good, apparently. Natasha’s pitying gaze pinned him across the room. “It didn’t really last long. I ended it. He was rough… not just around the edges.”

Natasha’s mouth quirked like she wanted to say something else, but what came out was, “Guess we know why.”

“I felt like he was more emotionally attached than I was,” Steve sighed, and he could feel his confidence ebbing away. He was so tired. “And, well, now… it’s probably best I broke it off when I did.”

The few seconds of silence seemed to stretch for an eternity. Natasha’s fidgeting had ceased completely. She looked around, as if observing the tension in the air, and tested, “But?”

Steve felt like he had sighed more than he’d breathed today. “Always so perceptive.”

“Well it’s not like you make it that hard,” Natasha said. Steve let the silence fill the room for a few more seconds to gather his thoughts, and voiced what he’d been wondering since Rumlow had forced him to his knees and said _Not here_.

“If… if I had stayed with him, would he have stayed with HYDRA?” Steve felt acutely aware of everything in that moment, all of his emotions that he had bottled up that were now coming loose: everyone he knew was dead, everyone here is so different, but now not everyone he knew was dead, oh God Bucky has been alive all this time and with HYDRA, and one of the only other men he’d been close to was HYDRA as well. It was suffocating, and Steve could feel the crash all over again, the ice seeping into his bones. “Could I have changed his mind?” In a different world, maybe Rumlow would be on the run with Steve too, a former HYDRA agent on their side.

“No, I think he would have just killed you. It’s probable that the relationship was a ploy in the first place anyway, to get close to you,” Natasha mused, head tilted to one side. Her fidgeting had started again. “I’m surprised they didn’t use it more, though judging by the look he gave you, it might not have entirely been a ploy.” Natasha shook her head. “What ifs don’t matter. This is where we are, and the past can’t change.”

“Just the future,” Steve conceded. This place was too small, and the ice was still creeping. “I need to get some air.”

“Sorry,” Natasha apologized again. “I know this is all a lot. I felt like you needed to talk about it.”

“Not just playful ribbing, then.”

“Not exactly, no.” The wry smile was back on Natasha’s face.

Steve turned the door handle and paused. “You’re right,” he said, “I did. Need to talk about it. See you later.”

“Good luck,” she called after him, and he breathed in again. He would need it.

 

* * *

 

They didn’t get a chance to speak again until after the mission, when the Insight helicarriers and Steve were thoroughly wrecked, in the Potomac and the hospital, respectively. Sam was by Steve’s bedside talking animatedly about flying the Falcon suit when Natasha came in, looking rather chipper for someone who had just exposed her entire life to the world.

“Good to see you in one piece, Rogers,” she said, settling gracefully into the seat next to Sam.

“Yeah, me too,” Sam agreed as he stood up. “Look, don’t mean to run, but I got some stuff to settle. The government didn’t take to well to my, uh… vigilante acts with the Falcon suit.”

“Ah, paperwork. The ultimate evil,” Steve groaned playfully.

“You know it,” Sam laughed, “take it easy, Steve.”

“If I take it any easier I’ll end up stuck to the bed!”

Sam just rolled his eyes and gave a little wave as he walked out the door. Steve grinned after him, and once the door closed he turned his eyes to Natasha, who was giving him a look.

“What?” Steve asked.

“Really, Steve? Sam too?”

Steve felt his face heat up, and to his credit he only blinked once as he said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh come on, you guys practically just had a date right in front of me. I know flirting when I see it.” She frowned and tilted her head. “Come to think of it, were you flirting when I picked you up at the memorial?”

“I don’t - that wasn’t -“ Natasha gave Steve a pointed look. “Maybe,” he sighed reluctantly. “What, he’s a nice guy.”

“Certainly better than your previous relationship.” Steve grimaced, and Natasha thankfully moved on from that topic. “So… when did you guys start dating? Surely not on your first run?”

“Nah,” Steve said, a bit bashful. “I wouldn’t call us _dating_ , that would imply we’ve gone on more than one date.”

“But you _have_ gone on a date?” Steve was silent, and Natasha rolled her eyes. “I’m gonna find out one way or another, Rogers. I have my sources.”

“Meaning you can just ask Sam.”

“Sure, meaning that,” Natasha replied. Steve squinted at her slightly and she met his gaze evenly, betraying nothing.

“I went to see him at the VA,” Steve finally relented. “We talked, and we wanted to talk more so we went and got dinner at a local joint. And then I… ended up at his place.”

Natasha’s eyebrows went up. “Didn’t take Captain America for a guy who even kissed on the first date. Damn, Steve.”

“It escalated further than I expected,” he said, face flushed, and she let out a laugh. “He still resents me for leaving before breakfast.”

“I wondered about that.” She was still laughing, and Steve decided it was nice to see. She’d dealt with a lot these past few days. “Since I made you talk so much, I’ll tell you something.” The laughter stopped and she was still smiling, though Steve could tell the next words pained her. “A few years back I was in a relationship with Pepper Potts.”

Steve blinked hard. “Stark’s girlfriend?”

“Not at the time,” it was Natasha’s turn to sigh, “but yes. She’s dating Stark now, or maybe they’re taking a break, I don’t know. When I knew her, she was just his new and incredibly frazzled CEO.” Steve gave her a nod and a look that he hoped said _Go on_. “It was short. She was in love with Stark and I was undercover. You know how it goes.” She shrugged.

Steve shook his head. “You know I don’t.” He studied the woman in the chair next to him, a person he had fought so many battles with, jumped out of planes with, taken on operations and villains and aliens - a person he was glad to call friend. “You liked her.”

Natasha looked away, and for the first time, Steve noticed how pronounced the bags under her eyes were. “Always so perceptive,” she murmured.

“Sorry.”

“No, you’re right, and you’re allowed to ask, I’ve already laid your whole dating life bare.” She snorted, “And to think I’ve been trying to set you up for months. I was just looking in the wrong place, wasn’t I?”

“Not really,” Steve shrugged, “I’ve been with women too. I guess I’m bisexual, though that wasn’t really a word back in the 30s. I just knew I was a queer.” He thought about all the reading he’d done, when he searching and theorycrafting and discovering. “Guess I still am.”

“Only if you want to be.” Natasha smirked again, but it was a warm look. “It’s the twenty-first century, Steve. You get to choose who you are. Especially now that you’re out of a job.”

“Don’t remind me,” Steve groaned, and Natasha was laughing again.

 

* * *

 

They had just said goodbye to Fury, and now they stood over his grave. Sam wandered off towards a nearby tree to give them space for one last talk, and Steve looked at the file in his hands, tracing his fingers over the horrifying picture inside.

“You might not want to go pulling on that thread,” Natasha warned. “But I think I know why you’re so driven to help him.”

Steve was silent. She was right, he didn’t want to, but he knew he had to, if he ever wanted to see his friend again, if he ever wanted to feel like a person again. He needed closure. He at least needed that.

Natasha bit her lip, and then said, “Sorry, I don’t mean to pry.”

Steve let out a breath. “Yes you do… it’s okay. I don’t know if what we had is still there, but _he’s_ still there, somewhere. What I felt… it isn’t the same now, but I know he’s still in there. He knew me.” His jaw clenched. “He… he recognized me, and he stopped, and it’s very likely that he saved me from drowning. I have to help him.”

“I get it. I really do,” Natasha sighed. “If it was me in your place and Barton in his, I wouldn’t stop at anything to get him back, even without a relationship like that. And, well…” She gave him a soft, genuine smile. “Maybe the change isn’t a bad thing. What about Sam?”

Steve glanced over his shoulder at his… friend? Lover? Date? They would figure it out on the road. He had no doubts that Sam was coming with him. “We’ll burn that bridge when we get to it,” he decided finally.

“Spoken like a true gay,” Natasha replied with a laugh. “Just don’t break his heart, okay? Or I might have to hunt you down myself.”

“Noted,” Steve said. Natasha leaned in and gave him a kiss on the cheek, and Steve wished that she was coming with him too. She was the first person he could call a true friend in a long time, and, well.

He would miss these conversations.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I've wanted to write this one for a while. Couldn't stop wondering about the way Rumlow seemed so hesitant to do his job, plus SamSteve is best ship, and of course Stucky is always good. Steve has 2 hands y'all :3c


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